Nothing that the gramophone can do has a more fascinating interest than its ability to preserve the voices of people who have long passed away. How different our whole study of history and of the arts would be if we could hear faithfully recorded a speech by Demosthenes, by Cromwell, by Napoleon; if we could hear a passage spoken by Burbage, Mrs. Siddons, or Garrick, or Betterton; if Byron could read his own verse to us, or John Knox preach, or Jenny Lind sing. The gramophone came too late for that, but our own posterity will be able to hear the accents of our contemporaries as we hear them ourselves. To-night listeners will hear the most picturesque of Victorian actor-managers, a great singer, a powerful preacher, a brilliant violinist, a famous composer at the piano, and a soldier whoso record every school boy once knew by heart - all great men of a bygone age.